


Sunshine

by aameyalli



Series: Cadash Stories [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aameyalli/pseuds/aameyalli
Summary: Fifteen years after his Pa sold him to the Carta, Fionn Cadash is troubled by something Nightmare said. He and Cole come to an understanding. (post Here Lies the Abyss)
Relationships: Cadash & Cole
Series: Cadash Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676107
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	Sunshine

_“Ah, we have a visitor. Some foolish little boy comes to steal the fear I kindly lifted from his shoulders. You should have thanked me and left your fear where it lay, forgotten. You think that pain will make you stronger? What fool filled your mind with such drivel? Was it Varric’s books? Lyrium-addled, crawling thing. Sold for a silver coin. You will never be worth more.” Nightmare chuckled. “The only one who grows stronger from your fears is_ **_me.”_ **

* * *

Cole was relieved. Fionn had promised to kill him if he turned wicked, and that was good. He needed to hear it.

He had expected Fionn to say no, because Fionn was so bright inside, all baked earth and sunshine, so much sunshine for somebody grown in the dark. He didn’t like mercy killing. Or, he had expected Fionn to say yes out of kindness but to know it was a lie, because Fionn was kind and a liar. He had not expected Yes-and-I-Mean-It, Fionn pausing to suck on his promise and really _taste_ it before he said anything, and the way he kept tasting it after it was said, sour sad and certain and certainly going to stop Cole if he started acting like Nightmare. Going to keep Cole pinned out here in his sunshine, so he never could slip to the dark place without being caught.

Cole would not feel really safe until Solas bound him. But his breaths came easier now.

The Inquisitor had changed since they climbed bruised bloody burning up from Haven, when Cole drew a knife to help that dying soldier and Fionn said _No._

“Good,” Cole told him. “Thank you.”

Fionn ducked his head smiling, half sheepish half sly. “Happy to help.” He wasn’t really. It hurt him to help like this, and Nightmare had left him aching and raw so each new thing hurt a little more than normal. He felt dried up, splitting inside, like ground awaiting rain. Dull and thirsty. He wanted to ask Cole something.

Cole thought he should broach the topic with tact this time. “You feel like dying,” he said brightly.

Fionn made a funny face. “I do? I don’t think I do.”

“Like dying… dirt.”

“Oh. Uh. Nice of you to say, Cole.”

“You want to ask me something.”

“Uh.” He scratched his tidy auburn beard. “Okay. Maybe. Do I?”

Cole picked at his fingers for a few seconds, tearing up the cuticles, just in case Fionn wanted to ask with his own voice, but he didn’t seem to. That was okay. Cole could speak for him.

 _“Am I lyrium-addled,”_ Cole said. “That’s what you want to ask me but I don’t know what it means.’

Fionn sat down on an old crate next to Cole. Sat hard. It pushed his breath out through his mouth in a gust, and he turned that into a liar’s little huff of laughter. “Oh, that? That’s nothing, Cole. Nightmare said it. But you heard how he talked to all of us. He’s just a big fat bully. I mean—” He dropped his voice into a low, goopy drawl. _“Howdy there, Hawke. I think you’re ugly and Kirkwall smells like nug butts.’_ Like the Champion of Kirkwall would be scared of a spider. It’s drivel.”

While Fionn talked, trying to distract him, Cole was searching the bottom of his question, looking for clues.

“Lyrium-addled.” Cole turned the words over, dusted them off. “Blue light, bright and bitter. Seeping in through the pads of your fingers. Stays staining under the skin. Started so young. They never gave you gloves. Not worth the coin. You handled it raw.”

“Huh. Yeah. That’s right.” Fionn looked down at his hands.

“Lyrium-addled,” Cole said again. “Yes. You are. Harder to shift focus. Harder to read. Getting angry at the letters. Thoughts spinning everywhere like little winds full of gold dust. Everything glitters and catches your eye. You hear magic. In the quiet, before you sleep, there is a whine. Like instruments tuning up. You hear magic passing by your ears and far overhead. Dorian is humming all the time but he can’t hear it. Sometimes you want to plug your ears.”

Fionn huffed again. “Figures. Thanks for the diagnosis, doc.”

Cole had made him unhappier. His archer’s eyes, farsighted, were looking off in the future now, squinting, suspicious, afraid. His throat hurt a little. When the hole in the sky was all patched up, would the Inquisition send him back where they’d borrowed him from, back to cutting lyrium and killing for the Carta, and forget him? Nightmare made him think so. Lyrium-addled, crawling Fionn. Not worth the coin and not worth remembering.

Cole had never minded being forgotten himself, but the idea burned like poison in his friend.

_The baby laughing. The silver coin._

_Crevices in the stone like parting black lips. The Carta sent him in there because he was small. Into tight places where grown men couldn’t go, searching by sound for the hidden veins._

_Cuts on his fingers. Blisters and scrapes. Lyrium under the skin, healed over, sealed in. Pushing, grasping, shaking, shoving. Fevers that festered, no one to nurse them. Boots too small. An ache in his shoulders. Blood in his socks._

_Cold air in Fionn’s ears, pages turning, dead sound, legs cramped from sitting, hiding, in one place too long, no heat, no light but blue light. No voice but his own, reading under his breath._

_Traded. Used. Discarded. Lyrium-addled. Not worth the coin. Dry and cracking. Craving a drink. End up like Varric. Not the worst thing. End up like Pa who sold his son for a silver._

Cole could make the hurt go away again. Childhood pains were easy enough. But he knew—had been— _was_ —had known another boy with cramping legs, with too-tight skin, a boy laughed at and discarded. Not worth checking on. Not worth medicine. Not worth bread. 

Cole-in-the-Tower. Fionn-in-the-Mines.

He didn’t want to meddle with Fionn’s head. He didn’t want to use the memories Nightmare had dug up and left for other demons to find. Fionn hadn’t asked for it. And Cole just wanted to say something he’d thought of on his own. Just talking. Like a friend.

“Addled isn’t shattered,” said Cole softly. “Not damaged, just deranged. It’s bad how it happened. Someone should have sheltered you. But I like how you are. You listen different. When I talk, it isn’t native. Words flow crooked. Turn aside from what I mean. But you understand it. Like with the mint and cheese and dancing cats. You flow along with me. I think I like to talk with someone addled.”

This time, Fionn just plain sighed. He stood up and tugged at his gloves (dragon’s hide, worth gold, armor worn like finery). Already he was mending on his own, patting down the dust over all that Nightmare unearthed, hiding it away. No one would forget him. He was too grand. Who would forget such a grand old story?

Fionn was a really cheerful person. Cole didn’t meet a lot of those here.

“Thanks,” said Fionn roughly. “I like—Uh.” He cleared his throat. “I like talking to you too, Cole.”

Cole was going to disappear now, because the soldiers’ daughters who played in the barn were pulling hair and biting hard and someone had to show them better games. But he was kept, suddenly, right where he was, by a pair of strong arms going round him.

Cole tucked his head into the dip in Fionn’s shoulder. He did not know what to do with his hands, so they hung at his sides. He thought, sharing is better than taking away.

Fionn hugged Cole for a long time. Pinning him here in the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> the baby laughing : Fionn was sixth of seven unwanted children. He had five older brothers and a baby sister, Clo. It was his job to keep Clo quiet so she wouldn't anger Pa. He associates both laughter and tears from a baby with punishment even now.  
> the silver coin : When Fionn was 10, the Carta’s House Cadash came to collect a debt from his father. His Pa was short one silver, so handed over his son to pay the difference, saying only "He doesn't eat much. You'll find some use."  
> Varric's books : Fionn coped with life in Dust Town and the Carta by reading adventure books. Varric's were his favorite, and he idolized "Captain Belladonna" (Bela). Between the stories he consumed and the ones he made up through dogged daydreaming, he was able to pretend the Carta was a fun adventure and come out of it all an optimist.


End file.
